United put damper on Fergie’s homecoming
ABERDEEN 1
Edwards (16 og) DUNDEE UNITED 1
Mcnulty (4, pen)
Jim Goodwin enjoyed Fergie time but was frustrated Aberdeen couldn’t deliver a win to cap the return of the club’s most successful ever manager.
On Friday Sir Alex Ferguson unveiled his statue that marks the 10 major trophies collected in just eight years in charge at Pittodrie.
Then, yesterday, there was a full house to pay tribute, although the current Dons players couldn’t climax the celebrations with victory.
That was all that was missing for the latest man trying to live up to that incredible legacy as Goodwin relished the occasion.
So much so that he even had to sacrifice family time for a hour-long education in a oneon-one talk with Sir Alex.
He said: “My wife and kids were all looking forward to having breakfast together as I haven’t seen them for a week.
“But I had to break the news to them I wouldn’t be standing Mr Ferguson up as he had told me to come for a coffee at 9am.
“The ovation he got was brilliant and he shook my hand on the way up to the directors’ box so I knew he was there.
“I said to the players just make sure he’s not coming into the dressing room at half-time telling us where we’re going wrong.”
Not that Sir Alex would have been happy at the end result, as it saw Aberdeen slip back to ninth place in the table.
A combination of illness and injury meant Ross Mccrorie, Calvin Ramsey, Jonny Hayes, Jay Emmanuel-thomas and Scott Brown were all unavailable.
In fact, Goodwin was only able to list five substitutes and, to make matters worse, his first home game got off to a disastrous start.
Only David Bates will know what compelled the former Ranger to pull Ian Harkes back by the jersey in the box with the American going nowhere.
That earned the defender a yellow card while Marc Mcnulty blasted home the resulting penalty to give United a fourthminute lead.
Goodwin added: “To give away a penalty in the manner we did was really disappointing.
“It was poor from my player but we responded well and once we got the goal we did well.
“We finished the first half well and in the second half we were in complete control.”
It was the Tannadice team’s first goal on their travels since
late November, a reflection of poor form on the road that looked like continuing as they were torn apart by Aberdeen in general and Dutch winger Vincente Besuijen in particular.
United’s back three allowed plenty of space to exploit down the right flank and he certainly did that in the first half.
None more so than when setting up the equaliser in 15 minutes, moving on to a Funso Ojo pass to hit a sharp angled shot brilliantly parried by Benjemin Siegrist.
Unfortunately for the goalkeeper, Matty Kennedy turned the rebound across goal and it spun into the net off Ryan Edwards.
From there on it was hard to credit quite how Aberdeen failed to hit the front with both Christian Ramirez and Besuijen guilty of bad misses.
Ramirez scooped an Ojo cutback high over the bar within 60 seconds of the leveller and Besuijen did the same to a Kennedy cross 20 minutes later.
Manchester United loanee Dylan Levitt limped off with a hamstring injury just before the break but Callum Butcher proved an effective replacement.
But the visitors lacked creativity in attack, with Joe Lewis a virtual spectator.
At the other end it took the occasional sharpness of Siegrist to ensure the Tannadice team salvaged a point.